Daytona finalist for gymnastics tourney

Tuesday

Oct 29, 2013 at 5:40 PMOct 29, 2013 at 10:23 PM

By JEFFREY CASSADYjeffrey.cassady@news-jrnl.com

DAYTONA BEACH — More than 5,000 gymnasts and spectators might be coming to Daytona Beach for 16 days in November of next year.Daytona Beach is one of two cities being considered to host the 2014 World Championships for Men's and Women's Trampoline and Tumbling. The competition, which would boost the local economy by nearly $8 million, will take place Nov. 2-18, 2014, and will be televised nationally on NBC.“It could be the best November in history (for the Daytona Beach tourism industry),” said Jeffrey Hentz, executive director of the Halifax Area Advertising Authority, which promotes the area as a destination for tourists, meetings and sporting events.The International Federation of Gymnastics, the Switzerland-based organization that governs the sport, will decide in the next few days whether to bring the event to the Ocean Center, the Volusia County-run beachside convention center, said John Bisignano, president and CEO of the Central Florida Sports Commission.The Orlando-based sports commission works to attract sporting events to Volusia and four other Central Florida counties. Though it wouldn't be the largest event on the Ocean Center's schedule — two Shriners International conventions in 2017 and 2018 are expected to bring up to 20,000 visitors to the area each — it would come at a slow time of the year for area tourism, well after the end of the busy summer travel season.The event would bring an estimated $7.7 million in additional spending to the local economy, as well as international television exposure.Additionally, the 16-day gymnastics competition is expected to generate more than 15,000 hotel room nights, likely more than what either five-day Shriners event will produce, said Ocean Center Director Don Poor.In August, the ad authority board voted to contribute $55,000 to defray the cost of renting the Ocean Center if the facility lands the event. That amount will be matched by the Florida Sports Foundation, a division of Enterprise Florida, the state's economic development organization.Both USA Gymnastics, the sport's governing body in the United States, and its Polish counterpart, the Polish Gymnastic Association, submitted bids to host the competition in 2014.If Daytona Beach is selected, it will mark the first time since the 1980s that the competition has been held in the United States, Bisignano said. The 2013 championships will be held in Sofia, Bulgaria, next month.Indianapolis-based USA Gymnastics selected Daytona Beach as a possible host city in large part because of the 200,000-square-foot Ocean Center, Bisignano said. The complex at 101 N. Atlantic Ave. is the state's fifth-largest convention center.“They basically needed a building that is the size and shape of the Ocean Center with exhibit and competition space under one roof,” he said.A coalition of beachside hotels, the ad authority, the Central Florida Sports Commission, the Ocean Center and the Florida Sports Foundation will run the event if it comes to Daytona Beach, Bisignano said.The event would come at a good time for hotels near the Ocean Center, including the Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites at 930 N. Atlantic Ave., just a few blocks north of the convention center. The Holiday Inn is one of several area hotels on the organizing committee, said Efrain Vargas, area sales director for Premier Resorts & Management, which manages the hotel.The sports commission estimates that the 123-room Holiday Inn alone stands to gain 1,050 booked room nights from the event.“For the majority of the month, it's the slow season,” Vargas said. “The only week that's good every year is Thanksgiving week.”